A mercy flight carrying 106 adopted children from quake-ravaged Haiti to new lives and families in the Netherlands and Luxembourg has left the Caribbean nation’s capital, organizers said Thursday.

Reuters

A Haitian orphan huddled in a tent set up by the Dutch Urban Search and Rescue team at the U.N. compound.

The charter flight took off from the airport in Port-au-Prince and was making a stop on the Netherlands Antilles island of Curacao before landing Thursday afternoon at a military airfield in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven, The Netherlands Adoption Foundation said. “The mission is going to succeed!” the group said on its Web site.

The children will be introduced to their new parents at Eindhoven, some of them for the first time. Most of the children had already been matched with new Dutch parents and were in the process of being adopted when last week’s magnitude-7.0 quake reduced large swaths of Haiti to rubble. Nine have no new family waiting for them, and will be placed in foster care until parents can be found.

The waiting parents were excited to meet the children Thursday, but also anxious about their health following the quake, said Netherlands Adoption Foundation spokeswoman Letje Vermunt. The agency was one of two organizing the adoptions. Read More »

THIRD UPDATE: A strong earthquake struck Haiti on Wednesday morning, shaking buildings and sending people running into the streets only eight days after the country’s capital was devastated by a previous quake.

The massive aftershock felt mild to some but still shook a lot of people out of bed, says WSJ reporter Ianthe Dugan. “Many people were running outside, saying, ‘Did you feel that earthquake?’ she said in an emailed message. “They debated whether [the quake] was small or mitigated by distance.”

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 6.1 magnitude aftershock hit at 6:03 a.m. about 35 miles northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince. It struck at a depth of 6.2 miles but was located too far inland to generate any tidal waves in the Caribbean.

WSJ correspondents Charles Forelle and Jose de Cordoba were in their hotel when the shaking began and promptly made a “mad dash for the door.” Guests streamed at full sprint into the hallways, Mr. Forelle said.

“People gathered in the open spaces of the hotel, around the pool and the garden, and everyone was nervous,” Mr. Cordoba said. But, he added that “there’ve been aftershocks here everyday. In an odd way, you get used to them.” Read More »

Cash transfers worth nearly $1.9 billion annually to Haitians from relatives living in the U.S. and elsewhere have slowed to a trickle as companies struggle for access to currency and scramble to open locations damaged by the earthquake.

Money transfer firms contacted Tuesday said their businesses are now operating on a limited basis in Haiti, mostly outside of the capital of Port-au-Prince where damage was heaviest.

AFP/Getty Images

“The life force for Haiti comes from the remittance industry,” said Jean-Marc Piquion, vice president for
sales and marketing at Unitransfer Florida Inc. “Since a lot of people do not have access to cash, it is a necessity for the transfer services to reopen.”

Haiti’s banks have been closed since last week’s earthquake, leaving people with few options to obtain much-needed cash. And the money transfer business was key to the country, one of the world’s poorest, even before the quake struck.

In Port-au-Prince, Marie Viana, a 36-year-old single mother of seven, said she depends on transfers of $50 a month from her half brother, a taxi driver in New York, to supplement her income from an outdoor food stand that was destroyed. Nothing is coming in now, she said. “Now, we are all living entirely thanks to the charity of neighbors,” Ms. Viana said. Read More »

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday praised the “essential role” the U.S. is playing in helping Haiti recover — scrambling to overcome comments by one of his ministers who compared Washington’s aid efforts to a new occupation of the impoverished nation.

Reuters

A U.N. spokeswoman in Geneva echoed Mr. Sarkozy, insisting that aid coordination is improving in Haiti and dismissing criticism over how the U.S. controls the clogged airport in the capital of Port-au-Prince.

“In the sphere of logistics, we really have to thank them,” spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said of the U.S. military. “Without them, the airport wouldn’t work.”

In a particularly flattering statement, Mr. Sarkozy said his country was “fully satisfied” by the cooperation between the U.S. and France, which decided last week to join forces to respond to the devastation of the Jan. 12 earthquake. Mr. Sarkozy also acknowledged the “exceptional mobilization of the United States on Haiti’s behalf and the essential role it was playing on the ground.” Read More »

Antigua and Barbuda: Two missing.Argentina: One dead.Austria: One dead.Belgium: One missing.Brazil: 19 dead and one missing.Britain: One dead.Canada: 12 dead, 699 unaccounted for.Chile: One dead, one missing.China: Eight dead.Costa Rica: Two missing.Dominican Republic: 24 dead, 24 missing.El Salvador: One missingFrance: 12 dead, government fears 20-30 may have died.Germany: One dead, 16 missing.Italy: Two dead, including a U.N. official, 2 missing and feared dead, 5 unaccounted for.Jordan: Three killed, 23 wounded, all from international peacekeeping force.Read More »

U.S. Navy helicopters touched down on the grounds of Haiti’s damaged presidential palace on Tuesday bringing reinforcements in the struggle for security and earthquake disaster relief — several dozen U.S. troops.

Reuters

Haitians jammed the fence of the palace grounds to gawk, some cheering as the soldiers emerged. “We are happy that they are coming, because we have so many problems,” said Fede Felissaint, a hairdresser.

Given the circumstances, he did not even mind the troops taking up positions at the presidential palace. “If they want, they can stay longer than in 1915,” he said, a reference to the start of a 19-year U.S. military presence in Haiti — something U.S. officials have repeatedly insisted they have no intention of repeating. Read More »

Supplies are beginning to reach large numbers of Haitians. U.S. troops in Haiti are expected to reach about 10,000 by midweek to help transport emergency aid, provide security and clear debris. Click here for the latest photos of the relief effort. Read More »

The United Nations said its earthquake relief coordination is working well in Haiti, dismissing criticism over how the U.S. controls the Port-au-Prince airport.

U.N. spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs defended U.S. efforts, saying the airport wouldn’t be working without U.S. military help and crediting the U.S. with bringing great aid and expertise to the impoverished nation.

Her comments come after an agreement Monday to ensure that the U.S. would give aid flights priority in landing in the Haitian capital. The U.S. had been criticized for giving military and rescue aircraft top landing rights. Read More »